#  Arab Transformation Working Groups 2013–17 

 



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 In Fall 2013 CMES Director William Granara [convened three working groups](/news/conversation-incoming-cmes-director-william-granara-0) focused on modern Middle East culture and politics. With participation from students and faculty from across Harvard and beyond, these programs seek to apply their members’ collective expertise in monitoring and interpreting recent and unfolding events in the region, and to take on a leading role in attracting students to the study of the Middle East.

> *There are lots of contradictions and complexities and difficulties that come with the field of Middle East studies, and it’s our job to help people understand these complexities—not necessarily to solve the problems but to understand how to approach them. These working groups will basically focus on how we receive these events, whether they are artistic expressions or political explosions or whatever they are, and how we articulate them, how we understand them, and how we present them to the public. In that way these programs should be quite dynamic, ready to think about what’s going on as it happens. --[William Granara, September 18, 2013 ](/news/conversation-incoming-cmes-director-william-granara-0)*

 *These initiatives are made possible with support from the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Dean of the Division of Social Science, and the Donald T. Regan Lecture Fund.* 

 

  [### Film and Visual Arts in a Changing Middle East

 ](/projects/working-groups-2013/arts) This student-run working group, convened in Fall 2013, is focused on artistic expression, including film, contemporary art, graffiti, rap and other music, and other visual expression, particularly with regard to the Arab Spring and its ongoing... 

 

 

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   [### Middle East Literature in Transition: New Frontiers in the 21st Century

 ](/projects/working-groups-2013/literature) This working group, convened in Fall 2013, explores the way in which novels and short stories, and to a lesser extent plays and poetry, express or articulate the sociological, religious, and cultural changes occurring in the countries of the Middle East... 

 

 

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   [### The Arab World in Transition: Politics and Social Movements

 ](/projects/working-groups-2013/politics) This working group, convened in Fall 2013, is focused on contemporary political issues and modern Middle East history. Public events organized by the group include a series of roundtable discussions geared towards substantive question and answer periods... 

 

 

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